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Enjeux de l’Étude du Christianisme des Origines
– association culturelle –
Pour la formation, la rencontre et l’espérance des chrétiens d’Orient et d’Occident
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___En septembre 2007 naissait l’Association, avec des chrétiens d’Orient (surtout coptes) et d’Occident. Son premier président fut Pierre Eid, un Libanais melkite catholique († 2011). _EEChO, c’est • un projet, • un réseau, • Un projet – se ressourcer auprès des paroles et des actes des douze Apôtres : Partis dans toutes les directions du monde accessible, les Apôtres ont touché les grandes civilisations de leur temps, du Caucase à la Nubie-Ethiopie et de l’Espagne à la Chine. – Chacun d’eux a transmis la Révélation reçue dans une grande diversité culturelle et géographique ; redécouvrir cet universalisme réalisé par eux, grâce aux diasporas hébréo-araméennes, est un fondement de notre projet. • Un réseau – rapprocher les croyants d’Orient et d’Occident : * « Nous croyons en l’Eglise une, sainte, catholique et apostolique »: ainsi se proclame la foi chrétienne comme fondée sur les douze Apôtres. • Une espérance – soutenir le rayonnement des Communautés d’Orient, et aider au discernement : |
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Association EEChO (Exploring and Educating about Christianity’s Origins)
EEChO is dedicated to exploring anew the roots of the Judeo-Christian Faith of the Apostles and educating a contemporary public exposed to a bewildering and misinformed variety of conflicting opinions about the origins of Christianity and the Gospels. As it goes, much of the skepticism regarding the trustworthiness of the latter springs from rationalist prejudices and misguided methods of investigation that typically disregard their oral analysis and Judeo-Syrian substance. Yet, such an analysis compellingly demonstrates that the four canonical Gospels, originally composed and transmitted in Aramaic within circles of liturgical-catechistic sessions of training, are strictly based on firsthand eyewitness testimonies and truthfully and accurately recount the teachings, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Word made flesh. The investigation of the New Testament texts in terms of their essential oral nature yields hard fact evidence which serious scholarship can no longer afford to underestimate (see the related works of Pierre Perrier and Frédéric Guigain).
_____EEChO also aims at bringing together, through mutual studies and inter-ecclesial events, Christians from the various Catholic Rites, traditions, and forms of liturgical worship: Latin, or Western Roman Catholics; West Syriac Catholics (Maronites, Syriacs, Malankareses); East Syriac Catholics (Chaldeans, Syro-Malabareses); Byzantine Catholics (Armenians, Melkites, Ukrainians); Alexandrian Catholics (Copts, Ethiopians).
_____It takes seriously the critical fact that most of the Rites in the Catholic Church are actually Eastern Rites, and wishes to promote the rediscovery of the numerous and rich Eastern traditions less known or neglected in the West. For Westerners, it is indeed often difficult to overcome the cultural and historical barriers hindering their awareness of the beauty, truthfulness, and wealth of these unfamiliar traditions, in the way strong prejudices typically do. Yet, being born in the Holy Land, the Christian Church started spreading exponentially from East to West through the dedication of Judeo-Christians from Palestine and Mesopotamia, Eastern Christians faithfully teaching and passing on, in Aramaic and the
languages it came to be translated into, the Good News directly entrusted to them.
_____EEChO is also devoted, through the research works of some of its members, to accounting for the antiquity and originality of the Eastern Canonical text in Aramaic, known as the Peshitta, on the solid basis of historical, archeological, and ethnological grounds.
Other fields of research investigated and promoted by EEChO include, among others:
— The fabulous archeological findings (Judeo-Christian/Middle-Eastern designs) of Kong
Wang Shan and parallel first-century documentary confirmations of the presence of the Apostle Thomas in China between years 65 and 68 A.D., all of which attesting the Church of China as a direct apostolic foundation;
— The delicate subject matter treating of the origins of Islam, by way of important insights capable of shedding new light upon the obscure question of Islam’s true sources and their relation to heretic movements in first and second centuries.
Contact us : contact@eecho.fr